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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Best and Worst News of 2022, Hopes and Fears For 2023

December 31, 2022 by Dan Mitchell

Continuing a tradition that began back in 2013, let’s look at the best and worst developments of the past year. Since I try to be optimistic (notwithstanding forces and evidence to the contrary), let’s start with the good news. I’ll start by mentioning that we will now have gridlock in Washington. That’s probably a positive development, but I’ll explore that issue tomorrow as part of my “Hopes and Fears” column for 2023.  For today, let’s focus on three concrete developments from 2022 that unambiguously are positive........ 

  • States cutting tax rates and enacting tax reform 
  • Chileans vote against a statist constitution
  • More families have school choice

Now let’s shift to the bad news of 2022.

  • Biden semi-successfully expands the burden of government
  • The collapse of small-government conservatism in the United Kingdom
  • Massachusetts voters opt for class warfare .............To Read More....

It’s not easy being a libertarian, especially when your job is to protect economic liberty. Politicians have a natural incentive to increase the size, scope, and power of government. In almost all cases, our freedoms are best protected when politicians do nothing. Which is why, in general, I’m a fan of gridlock. But I also realize that we’re on a very bad path (thanks to demographic change and poorly designed entitlement programs), so we need to hope and pray that lawmakers at some point affirmatively take enact reforms to restrain the burden of government spending.

But that won’t happen this year. Instead, let’s review my hopes and fears on things that might actually happen. We’ll start with the things I hope to see.

  • Rejuvenated interest in spending restraint
  • More school choice
  • The Supreme Court Ends Civil Asset Forfeiture

Now let’s look at the things I’m afraid will happen.

  • Bipartisanship
  • Green protectionism
  • A Bursting Bubble in Italy..........To Read More....

 

 

 

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